2 CARNATIONS AND PINKS 



Gilloflowers may here mean variegated Stocks, to which 

 this name became transferred from the Carnation. 

 Gerarde (1597) calls them " Stock Gilloflowers." As the 

 Clove was called Cariophillon, or sometimes Gario- 

 phlus } in the fifteenth century, the Carnation was known 

 as Caryophyllus, having a similar scent. The Clove is 

 in French "Clou de Girofle," Giroflee being the 

 Wallflower. Though Cloves are mentioned in various 

 recipes, there does not appear to be any reference 

 to the Carnation before the sixteenth century. 

 Chaucer says, "And many a clove gelofre and note 

 muge to put in ale." This has been thought to refer 

 to the Carnation, but it is clearly the spice he refers 

 to. Gelofere and golofer were other spellings in the 

 fourteenth century. 



Girofle seems to have been a French corruption of 

 Caryophyllon, the latter being the Greek karuon, a 

 "nut" or "fruit-stone," and phullon, a "leaf," but the 

 connexion with clove is obscure. Then, by a trans- 

 position of ph and /it became gelofer and gillyflower. 

 Lastly, Professor Bradley in 1727 wrote it Jully- 

 flower, and so we arrive at July-flower, the name 

 known to herbalists in the eighteenth century. 

 Another Latin name for the Carnation was Vetonica. 

 This is used as the titles or headings of the plates in his 

 Imagines Stirpium, &c., by Dodonaeus (Dodoens, 1559), 

 but Matthiolus in his Commentary on Dioscoridessays 

 he failed to discover who was the author of this name. 

 Dodoens calls the Carnation Vetonica altilis (i.e. fat or 

 juicy). Yet another name was Ocellus, "a little eye," 

 hence the modern French name was Gillet, 



